Notes: I had my fill by the third episode of this series. Yes, there are five episodes, but I've seen enough to know where this is going.

Rating:

Genocyber

Synopsis

Two girls, one psychic, one bestial, are linked together to form the beast, Genocyber, who goes berserk avenging the death and suffering of children. However, in its path of destruction, one has to wonder - is the cure worse than the illness itself?

Review

This has to be one of the most sickeningly violent things I have ever seen. Seeing children literally shot apart at the beginning of episode 2 is probably one of the things that turned me completely off to this series ... which is so laden with violence that any message that it's trying to tell is drowned out beneath the blood. Some things were just never meant for people to call "entertainment", and just like Faces of Death, this OAV series is one of them.

For starters, you don't give a damn for anyone in this series. Either they die (even more gruesomely than in MD Geist, no less), or they go insane, like Genocyber herself, or the U.S. Navy nurse in episode three. The plot is ... well ... not laid out logically at all, with events seeming to spontaneously happen, and lots of mumbo-jumbo about Vajra and Dharma (and Greg, too!). (Sorry, couldn't resist.) It's not particularly well-done at all, and not even the animation seems to be too good. It's just a lot of blood and guts and barbecue sauce, with a dash of explosions and bystander deaths...if the very cause Genocyber stands for is to avenge pain and suffering, then why kill so many innocents doing it? You feel absolutely no sympathy for the child that is Genocyber/Diana, because she really is nothing but a beast with primal emotions. (Not a great thing to say us as a race, isn't it? Actually, to characterize us as all being violent and nothing but cannon fodder is pretty darn insulting.) Really, about the only thing even remotely decent about this flick is the techno soundtrack.

You just know upon watching something like Genocyber that there has to be a reason for it. If there is a message here, it could be that revenge is a terrible way to live your life. I guess that's what the creator's trying to say. But need they have gone THIS far?

What's truly irritating is that there really is the potential within this series (at least at the beginning) for something good. Unfortunately, the creator of this show, Koichi Ohata (MD Geist, Cybernetics Guardian) throws away all semblance of plot and characterization after the first episode, in favor of increasing the magnitude of grossness, rather like watching a contest to see who can projectile-vomit the farthest. It's impressive in the least complimentary way I can imagine.

Genocyber is a turkey not even worth renting. In fact, it is one of the few anime that actually made me physically sick. Showing graphic onscreen violence toward children is just far too much for me to handle, not just as a fan of Japanese animation, but as a human being. I've seen ecchi flicks more socially conscious than this. And the fact that Genocyber doesn't even attempt to redeem itself for it is a travesty.

An innocence-stripping, awful, scarring, and disgusting piece of 'art' that debases Japanese animation as a medium. — Carlos Ross

Recommended Audience: ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR CHILDREN. Brutal and gory, this relentlessly violent series is potentially more offensive than a good portion of hentai titles out there, as the gore factor overshadows any plot that is being offered throughout the first half of the series. There is also a fair bit of foul language, and a scene of two of brief nudity, though nothing explicit or sexual in nature.